


how the other half dies

by wintercourse



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drowning, and dreambubbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:03:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3671766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercourse/pseuds/wintercourse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>look, it's practically black here, like bruises! like someone just punched the whole planet, isn't that horrid!</em> she grinned (always with teeth) as she said it. her skin was too thick for them, but feferi loved bruises.</p><p>lusii didn't bruise right. they mottled slightly grey, barely noticeable by the time she dragged their swollen bodies home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how the other half dies

_home_

the water back home was wonderful, deep and murky and blackened in some places. sometimes she would soar above it with eri, gripping tight to him and the slick scales of his lusus in absolutely exhilarated horror - she was never one for flying, even when she got her wings. her hair (always wet, even when it snapped in the wind like a flag) whipped his face and stung her arms. her skin was tough then, so she liked the feeling, strangeness amplified when the rushing air dried her out and left her feeling heavier than when she was soaked. _look, it's practically black here, like bruises! like someone just punched the whole planet, isn't that horrid!_ she grinned (always with teeth) as she said it. her skin was too thick for them, but feferi loved bruises.

lusii didn't bruise right. they mottled slightly grey, barely noticeable by the time she dragged their swollen bodies home.

_away_

she heard about earth's oceans long before she saw them - a run in with rose in the dreambubbles. they went swimming in the shallow end of the void, just outside the filmy surface of someone else's memory, kid's stuff really. she jeered as much at lalonde, goading her to go deeper; _you have audience with the noble circle don't you? an affinity for the dark? what are you doing so close to the guppies?_ rose cheerfully informed her that she was abusing the question mark, and said she was going for 'big fish in a small pond'. feferi squealed in delight and drew her close, kissing her cheeks and heralding her _my dearest cephalopod!_ rose squished up her face (her strange soft human face with curves instead of flat planes) and swatted her away. feferi floated lazily back towards her, and they both lay down (or up, or sideways, it's hard to tell in the endless expanse of space), looking staunchly in opposite directions. rose hazarded a glance at feferi, who nudged herself closer.

'have i ever told you about the sea on earth?'

_alien_

it's a while of searching - a second or an eternity, everything here is just 'a while' - but feferi finally chances on the right human memory. it's jade, with glasses and a strange complexion and dark hair as long as her own. she's always been fond of her, the girl who seemed friends with everyone; even if she seems weak beneath her hard edges beneath her cheerful smile. feferi isn't quite so fond of layers, and didn't exactly relish the chance to psychoanalyze a human, no matter how cute.

(rose is different - on earth she may be a mystery, but by alternian standards she was transparent, like a particularly pretty bit of sea glass. slightly smoky, still brittle, and easily snapped.)

she tries to stay out of sight - jade could be dead or dreaming, and feferi isn't particularly interested in finding out which. usually she would introduce herself; she seems to be the only one trying with the humans anymore! but she doesn't think she can spare the time, so instead she sneaks behind as jade walks along an unfamiliar shore. when the girl is distracted by her lusus (a great shaggy barkbeast, just like the rustbloods used to have), she slips into the water, thankful for the high tide washing away the strangely fine sand.

she learnt a long time ago not to dive into things without understanding them. she learnt it from some history books, boys who crackled with electricity and gunfire, and a game that made her own mother cry (and extinguish all life on the planet, but that was neither here nor there). but feferi had never thought to take something so figurative _literally_. so she doesn't hesitate to launch herself headfirst into the waves, the shock of unfamiliarity immediately choking her gills. rose had told her about all the salt - the metals, she said, dropping electrons, sharing them with their better halves, dissolving endlessly in the water. then she had looked away, and said that jade would explain it better. feferi thought it was cute, the way they tried to understand, to make sense where there was none. no one could fathom the ocean, that was the whole point! besides, she knew about salt. they did have that on alternia. but as soon as the water floods her mouth she realizes that they never had _this much_. it chokes her, and she's disoriented enough to let it down the wrong pipes, feel it rushing through her gut. it weighs heavy on her tongue, tasting like _wrong wrong wrong_ she was so _wrong_. she's never felt more glad to breach the surface, and that thought alone makes her sick to her stomach.

~~_home_ ~~

once, she had given up. an heiress was killed, she read in one of her books, and it was supposed to be honourable. it was supposed to be her calling, her destiny, dying at the hands of the empress. it showed she wasn't fit to rule. it was meant to be important and symbolic - that's why the book had pictures! pictures of a girl ripped open, supposedly precious blood staining the water, at the feet of a tyrant no one had even bothered to bet against. honourable.

she gave up the day she realized no one saw her as anything but a speck of dust in her condescension's seemingly endless reign. she tried to take it back, days later, convince herself that she had a chance, that maybe it did mean something, somehow. but the little drop of ink in the big glass of water still stains, and the doubt still nestled in her ribcage.

so this time, she won't give up at all.

~~_away_ ~~

she sees rose again, this time on a facsimile of her planet from the human session. the void has an easier time replicating game constructs than memories of real worlds, so the shore is perfect and solid, down to every grain of sand.

(more solid by far than the memory of rose's hive - some edges were blurred, and the girl seemed panicked when there was a knock on the door. the walls warped then, and they left quickly. _mothers are tricky, i know_.)

they wade out, deep enough that they can float on their backs, and feferi focuses on the water holding her up. if she closes her eyes, she can feel a slight drop in sensation - like the bright, reflective sea realizes she isn't looking and reverts itself back to code. the currents are digital, artificial. there's no moon here to pull them, not like the pull of earth's oceans or the dual tidal forces of alternia's moons. she opens her eyes, breaks her concentration and it suddenly feels just like any other body of water. an ocean is an ocean is an ocean. she turns over to look at her companion. rose is dressed for swimming, now, instead of the black full floating _mess_ she chooses when exploring the void. she seems more than six sweeps - how much more, feferi couldn't say. she does know the dead don't age. she's never been one for keeping her thoughts to herself, so the question that's been hovering in the back of her mind finally slips free - _are you dead or dreaming?_

rose slowly opens her eyes. they're a blank white. feferi takes a moment to wonder if she's relieved, until rose blinks. now her sclera glow yellow, like her own. _blink_ and they're red like terezi's, _blink_ and they're as empty and black as sollux's. she smiles, _neat trick huh_ , and her teeth seem almost sharp for a human.

'what about you?'

~~_alien_ ~~

it takes a while (always a while), but she finds jade's island again. this time the girl is even younger, a handful of sweeps at most, and runs straight into the water instead of trailing along the shore. feferi steadies herself and follows suit, some distance away. the trade off of preparedness is tension - the unfamiliar substance now swirling around her ankles makes her slightly nervous. but she's still determined, wanting desperately to cut through this alien landscape with the same ease she had in her own. she breathes through her mouth as she sinks down to immerse her gills - the feeling of her lungs expanding is a great comfort as she adjusts. breathing is something she can handle, perform in three different ways, or for a time, not at all. it's what her lusus did to rattle the walls of her hive, it's what the ocean itself did as it beat against cliffs and shores in every universe. it's what the empress herself _had to_ do, the common factor linking them deeper than their pink blood - the need to survive. she was raised by the strongest forces of nature, and learnt to breathe from them. it made her strong too.

the sky is darkening quickly, growing menacing - like the electric storms she used to swim under, that would kill off the smaller fish for midnight snacks. she ducks down, propelling herself forward, letting the retreating tide pull her to deeper waters. she sees jade bobbing along in the distance, and frowns. human skin is thinner, she couldn't handle the lightning. their lungs are smaller. she looks so young.

she swims closer, finally at ease in the strange water. seemingly more so than jade, who slips down for a second in the choppy waves. she looks like she wants to turn back, but struggles against the current. a riptide, feferi supposes - they definitely had those on alternia. the barkbeast is whining from the shore, the high pitch soaring over the churning water. it runs through the foam, barks ringing out as it paddles towards the struggling girl. feferi is closer now, still watching. she guesses this is just a memory, that jade will be fine - she's so young now, she lived longer than this in any timeline - but she still urges the lusus to move faster and save her.

(jade told her once that's what he did - saved her, even when she wanted to be left alone, even when he killed her friends, even when he doomed two universes.)

jade is staying up somehow (maybe not as weak as feferi assumed, maybe the exception to the rule), and the beast is closing in. jade splutters, coughs out water like it's poison - and to a girl without gills, it might as well be. feferi watches her reach out to grasp at thick white fur, sees her pause for a split second and turn her face away from an incoming wave. right towards the spying girl.

it happens fast, too fast for feferi to understand at first - their eyes meet, and jade's widen in shock before turning solid white and narrowing in horrified understanding. the barkbeast fades, flickers, and sinks like a stone, slipping away from her. she still struggles against the tide, under the surface more often than not, looking wildly, pleadingly at feferi whenever possible. reaching out an arm that she won't take. eventually, she doesn't struggle so much. eventually, she follows her dog. feferi treads water a few feet away, telling herself that humans are fragile.

both their eyes were white anyway, so it really doesn't matter.

-

 

if feferi peixes knows one thing, it's the ocean. more specifically, it's that an ocean is an ocean is an ocean - whether you're on alternia, earth, or the land of light and rain.

if feferi peixes could tell you one thing, it would be not to swim alone. leave that to her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> hi im philippa and im afraid of the ocean (aka every cliche feferi fic ever im sorry go ahead and comment though)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [How Your Other Quarter Double-Dies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7328512) by [caledfwlchthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caledfwlchthat/pseuds/caledfwlchthat)




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